


Tales from the Teacher's Lounge

by paperpenpal



Series: Read the Syllabus [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Characters Added As They Appear - Freeform, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Light and Soft, No Beta, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Plotless, in which all of the characters are teachers at an american high school, in which none of the characters have too much emotional baggage, just for fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:06:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24616516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperpenpal/pseuds/paperpenpal
Summary: There's only one place devoid of students in Garreg Mach Academy and that's the Teacher's Lounge, which means it's the only place that the staff can speak freely.A collection of random conversations you might overhear.AKATeacher AU in which the cast of Fire Emblem Three Houses are all teachers at a well funded American High School.
Series: Read the Syllabus [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1778224
Comments: 71
Kudos: 56





	1. First Day of School

**Author's Note:**

> A collection of short ficlets of different lighthearted conversations one might hear in their teacher's lounge.
> 
> Special thanks to the Sylvgrid discord who helped me brainstorm the subjects each character teaches and the clubs they advise.

The first day of school is always a bit of a disaster. It’s way too many ice-breaker games despite half the students already knowing each other and trying to calm the freaked out freshmen. By the time lunch rolls around, every single teacher is exhausted.

But everyone always gathers in the teacher’s lounge.

It’s the only place to hide from the students. During summer prep, it’s just the teachers roaming the halls, preparing their classrooms and syllabi, but once the school year starts? There is only one place you can go.

Unless you’re Byleth and you have your own office.

Sylvain hurries into the lounge way later than everyone else. It took him way too long to escape his a group of freshmen begging him for a tour and now the lunch hour is half over. Thank god he lucked out with a prep hour next period, he’s not sure he can handle much more of that.

The teacher’s lounge is abuzz with energy. There are not enough seats in it to fit everyone. Most of the year, this isn’t really an issue, since there’s always someone taking lunch in their own classroom or supervising a club activity but the first day of school means a packed lounge chatting about the new students.

He rushes over to the fridge next to the sink where Lysithea is furiously scrubbing away her lunch container, glaring the entire time.

“Someone mistake you for a student again?” Sylvain asks as he pulls out his lunch.

The tiny math teacher's sneer and refusal to respond tells him that he’s right on the money.

Sighing, he turns, looks around to the room to try to find someplace to sit.

The only empty seat in the room is the one that Hilda’s feet are propped up on as she chatters away happily with Annette.

“Mind if I sit here?” He asks, gesturing to her feet.

Hilda seems to consider this for a second before giving him the seat and he sinks into it happily. “Thanks,” He sighs, running a tired hand through his hair.

“What happened to you?” Hilda asks, playing with the whistle she has around her neck, although not actually looking all that interested, “Wait let me guess, freshman girls.”

Sylvain groans, exhausted. Most of the time, he takes the hot teacher jokes in stride, today he is simply tired. “How’d you know?”

“Same thing happened to Claude.” She explains with a shrug.

The concerned look on Annette’s face is refreshingly genuine, “Are you okay Sylvain?” the music teacher asks.

He waves a hand away, “Yeah, I’m fine,” He tells her, unwrapping his sandwich, “First day of school. How are your days going? Actually…Hilda, what are you even doing here?”

“Excuse you,” Hilda says, sounding offended, “This may be the teacher’s lounge but I’m still technically faculty.”

“No that’s not what I meant,” He quickly defends, “I mean, it’s the first day of school, there’s no way you have cheer practice today.”

“I’m scouting.” The cheer coach explains, “I lost a lot of good talent last year.”

“Isn’t it…a little early for that?”

Hilda huffs, “This isn’t like chess club.” She explains dismissively, “If we want a shot at winning, I have to recruit and recruit early so we can start training as soon as possible.”

“Hey,” He says, only a little offended, “chess club is pretty serious!”

“Cheer squad also brings in a lot of money.” Hilda continues as if he hadn’t spoken at all, “But we only bring in that money if we keep winning and that money helps fund your weirdly popular chess club.”

“Weirdly popular?” Annette chimes in, brows furrowed.

“Yeah, haven’t you noticed?” Hilda says, “When I was in school, chess club was considered lame. GMA has like, thirty members in theirs.”

Sylvain shrugs, “Maybe people just like chess.”

“Pretty sure it’s because people like your face.” Hilda laughs, “Yours and Claude’s. Why does chess club need two advisers anyway?”

It’s mostly because neither he nor Claude were willing to let the other person win but he doesn’t say that part out loud, instead he shrugs.

Annette pipes up now, “Were you in chess club in high school Sylvain?” She asks, “I only ask because I was in choir and now I’m the adviser.”

He shakes his head with a grin, “I was prom king.”

Besides him, Hilda snorts, behind him, he can hear Ingrid, who was close enough to eavesdrop, groan, “Of course you were.”

“Hey!” He says, scooting his chair back so that Ingrid and Dorothea, who had been sitting together at the next table, could join their little discussion. “There is nothing wrong with being prom king. Dimitri was prom king too.”

Across the room, the social studies teacher replies, “Don’t bring me into this.”

“Ah, prom,” Dorothea says fondly, “That was fun. I was prom queen.”

Literally no one is surprised by this.

“My school didn’t have a prom,” Annette says.

Several people blink at her.

“Erm,” She explains, “I went to a really small high school. I got invited to another prom though.”

Ingrid shrugs, “I never went to mine.”

Dorothea and Hilda both look affronted, “What?” They both say at the same time.

“I was busy!” Ingrid quickly explains, “And prom dresses are expensive.”

“But Ingrid!” Dorothea says, with all the drama of a drama teacher, “Prom is a _quintessential_ high school experience, weren’t you sad about missing out?”

Ingrid laughs, “I’ve chaperoned enough proms to know that I wasn’t missing much.”

“Speaking of chaperoning,” Annette says tentatively, “Does anyone want to chaperone homecoming with me this year maybe?”

Everyone immediately and vehemently shakes their heads.

“Yeah no,” Hilda says, scooting her chair out in case she needs to escape.

“Nope,” Sylvain says, biting into his sandwich.

“No thank you,” Dorothea says politely.

”Sorry Annette.” Ingrid says, looking genuinely apologetic. “Maybe Felix…?”

“Absolutely not!” The man in question says from somewhere in the room. Sylvain’s not even sure where Felix is but he must have heard his name and simply reacted.

Annette deflates but does her best to look positive, “It’s okay.” She says with only a hint of a sigh, “It was a long shot anyway but we really do need more chaperones.”

“Don’t we usually pull straws?” Sylvain says, mouth full. He feels Ingrid’s disapproving glare without even looking at her. He swallows his food quickly.

“You’re thinking of prom again.” Ingrid says, “We usually find volunteers. Then, if no one does it, we ask for parents to fill in. There’s always enough.”

“It’s usually the freshmen’s,” Dorothea adds helpfully. “Oh! Does anyone have any promising new talent this year?”

Hilda scoffs, “I wish.” She says, “This might be a rough year, which sucks because that means I have to work harder to get them even close to a shot.”

“Hilda,” Ingrid says, “You haven’t even _seen_ the freshmen yet.”

“I don’t need to.” She explains, holding up her phone, “What do you think I have a cheer captain for?”

Sylvain laughs, “That’s pretty genius, Hilda.”

“Thanks, I know.”

“Maybe I should get a captain.” He muses, wondering exactly what a chess club captain would be in charge of. The boards maybe?

“Aren’t captains a sports thing?” Annette asks, eyebrows furrowed, “Like, I don’t have a choir captain or anything. We just have different roles and responsibilities.”

“Yeah, that might work better.” He says, “I don’t actually know. I was never in any clubs in school.”

Ingrid sighs from her seat, “I should get going.” She tells them, looking at the clock as it ticks dangerously closer to the end of the lunch hour. “I still have stuff to prep.”

“Me too,” Dorothea says, “I still have to collect some props from the storeroom.”

“Oh, I’ll go with you!” Annette says, quickly getting up too, “There’re some music sheets in there I want to grab.”

With that, the group disperses, leaving only Sylvain and Hilda.

“Well that was quick,” Hilda observes as her phone lights up.

“Anything interesting?” He asks.

“Looks like I might have a few,” She sighs, “Which means I have to run over before lunch break is over and pitch this. Bummer.”

“I thought that was what a captain was for.”

“She’s still getting used to things.” Hilda explains, “Too much pressure and she’ll burst. Baby steps but yeah, trust me, by next week, she’ll be doing this sort of thing on her own and I for one, cannot wait.”

Hilda takes her leave then, and then it’s only Sylvain, a sandwich, and a room still full of teachers stretching out the lunch period for as long as possible.


	2. Language Requirement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't write the Black Eagles characters enough to really get their voices but I still wanted to try.
> 
> Thanks to the sylvgrid discord for helping me brainstorm the languages some of the characters would take!

“Uh, guys?” Caspar says, stumbling into the teacher’s lounge very late, addressing the room. The PE teacher has a perplexed look on his face as if trying to process an impossible sight, “Do you hear that ominous chanting or is that just me?”

In a nearby seat, Dorothea props her chin on her hand against the round table she’s sitting at, “Oh, that’s just Latin club,” she explains, “they’re practicing for the student showcase.”

Caspar looks no less perplexed but shrugs in the end, entering the room fully and opening the fridge, “Oh, I kind of just thought they were a bunch of goth kids trying to summon a ghost or something. That or a cult.”

“You’re thinking of the occult club,” Dorothea says as Caspar finds his lunch, ”the goth kids just listen to music under the West Hall stairwell.”

Lysithea who had only been passively listening as she taps away on her laptop at another table preparing another practice PowerPoint for quiz-bowl tries not to look too alarmed. “We have an occult club?” She asks, hands freezing at her keyboard and doing a relatively passible job of not letting her voice waver.

Edelgard sighs, looking very annoyed as she pours a cup of coffee at the countertop behind the math teacher. “Occult club is just what Brandon Sanderson likes to call himself and his friends when they commandeer an empty classroom to watch Buzzfeed Unsolved or scare unsuspecting freshman with Ghostwatch.” She says turning back to face the group, “We do _not_ have an occult club.” 

Lysithea looks relieved, unfortunately for her, Claude, who is sitting next to her catches it. “Afraid of ghosts?”

She throws him a glare so vicious he surprisingly shuts up but not without a teasing smile plastered on his face, even when he holds his hands out in surrender.

Caspar butts back in, sliding into the empty chair next to Dorothea, “Okay, but hold on, what the hell is the Latin club going to do for the student showcase?”

“Whatever it is, I wish they would stop.” Linhardt complains sleepily, lifting his head from the table and yawning as he stretches his hands back, “They practice in the classroom next to me and it’s hard to sleep.”

Edelgard levels a stern look at Linhardt who is completely unfazed by it, “You really shouldn’t be sleeping at work you know.”

Linhardt dismisses her scolding and simply slumps back onto the table, “It’s lunch, I can do whatever I like.” He says with a lazy wave.

Edelgard seems to want to say something but is interrupted by the way Petra knits her brows together and says, “I was not even aware that we have a Latin club.”

“Hubert’s the adviser,” Dorothea explains helpfully.

“I was not aware that he speaks Latin.”

“I’m not really sure anyone _really_ speaks Latin,” Dorothea says kindly, “But he runs it like the other language clubs. Didn’t he ask you about it?”

Petra shakes her head, “I don’t recall this,” she says, “Perhaps he was asking someone else?”

“Probably Ferdinand then,” Dorothea muses, “German club is one of the more popular language clubs.”

Caspar looks up, he’s already halfway through his sandwich. “I thought Ferdinand spoke French? Could have sworn he and Lorenz talk in it all the time.”

“He also speaks French.” Dorothea confirms, “I think he’s trying to learn Spanish now too.”

“He is!” Petra beams proudly with a little clap, “He is doing very well. He will on occasion attend club meetings for further practice. It is good for the students to see someone practicing so earnestly.”

Caspar’s face twists into a small thoughtful frown, “God, languages are just not my thing,” He admits, with a small head shake, “I took Japanese in high school and that was hard.”

“Japanese?” Dorothea hums, “How…unexpected.”

Caspar shrugs, “I was really into Naruto in high school. Plus I thought the kanji looked cool.”

“Oh my god,” Dorothea grins with a delighted smile, “I can see that. I can absolutely see that.”

“Yeah but I never continued with it after I tested out in college. I kinda wish I did.” Caspar says, “Still like Naruto though.”

“Did you have a headband and everything?” Dorothea teases lightly.

Caspar throws the cheesiest, showiest, and biggest thumbs up at Dorothea, “Believe it!” 

Dorothea bursts into a giggle, obviously endeared by Caspar, while the rest of the room looks confusingly on at them. 

“How about you?” He asks when she stops laughing, “What did you take in school?”

“Eight years of Italian,” Dorothea says, “It’s a shame we don’t offer it here. It’s a beautiful language.”

“Eh,” Caspar shrugs, finishing his lunch, “No one learns anything in high school language classes anyway.”

Petra frowns at him, “I do not agree.”

“Oops,” he says sheepishly to the Spanish teacher, “erm- I just mean our language programs need more funding!”

Petra lets that one slide. “That I do agree with.”

Dorothea glances up at Edelgard who is still stirring her coffee and watching the exchange quietly, “What about you Edie?” She asks, trying to draw the woman back into the conversation, “What did you take?”

“I studied Latin as an elective in high school.” Edelgard answers, coming up to tap Linhardt on the shoulder to wake him up. “Then switched to German in university because I thought it might be more useful for conversing.”

Dorothea nods as Linhardt stirs, “That makes sense.”

Linhardt rises without much of a fuss, not looking at all surprised by Edelgard’s tapping. It happens often. “Is it time for class already?” He asks with a yawn.

“Nearly.” Edelgard tells him in her teaching voice, “You ought to set an alarm for these things you know.”

“Yes, _mother._ ”Linhardt says pointedly. 

Edelgard ignores him. “Speaking of, I should get going. I'll see you all later.” 

At her mention, several other teachers murmur in agreement and begin shuffling out the door, leaving Caspar and Lysithea to listen to the Latin chanting together, both having free periods afterward.

Caspar sighs and looks over at Lysithea, whose brow is furrowed in deep thought as she prepares very difficult questions for her quiz team. “I still think they’re trying to summon a ghost.” He says.

Lysithea drops all one-hundred and sixteen of the flashcards she’s converting into slides onto her lap.


	3. An Unlikely Encounter

The nice thing about having a free period near the end of the school day is that there’s usually no one in the teacher’s lounge. Most of the other teachers who have the same breaks are too tired or overworked to make the trek so they stay in their classrooms. After all, the only thing that the lounge has that their own classrooms don’t is a distinct lack of ergonomic office chairs and non-instant coffee and most of the teachers here opt not to drink coffee after two.

Hubert is not one of them.

The tiny freshman terrified of him whisper that he’s a vampire who never sleeps, that they’re pretty sure they watched Star, a promising young sophomore, walk into detention with him and never walk back out. That the reason that Linhardt’s mice keep disappearing from their cages is because, “I bet Mr. Von Vestra eats them for lunch.” Which is ridiculous.

He eats them for dinner.

Or so he tells the students he overhears telling tales. 

The truth is, unfortunately, a lot less interesting. First of all, mice are wholly unappetizing and the reason they keep going “missing” is because they’re actually used to feed the snake in Byleth’s office and the benign truth behind the bags under Hubert’s eyes is that he’s an insomniac. The paleness of his skin can be attributed to his genetics and not at all from anything supernatural, forcing him to keep out of the sun because no amount of sunscreen stops him from turning pink, to which Dorothea tells him is an unflattering color that clashes with his hair, and the burning is a sensation so unpleasant that he simply avoids the sun altogether.

The rumors don’t bother him though. Children will be children and, in any case, the goth students under the stairwell think that his music recommendations are “choice” and his Latin Club is full of sometimes silly but very devoted individuals. That’s more than enough to keep his job fulfilling.

So if some of the students squeak when they see him, he doesn’t mind, not as long as they keep turning in their assignments on time. 

And besides, he isn’t actually the most feared teacher in the school. That honor would be reserved for Lysithea. She wins it every year in the yearbook. He gets best smile every other year. Marianne usually wins the years in-between. It really depends on how funny the yearbook committee think they are being.

There’s a comfortable couch in the lounge that Hubert bypasses entirely because people tend to eat there and no one’s shampooed the cushions since ninety-four, in favor of one of the more sturdy chairs in the empty lounge. He has a handful of tests he needs to grade, a red pen, and a full cup of freshly brewed coffee in the mug Edelgard gifted him for his birthday last year that simply reads “Tears of My Physics Students”

He gets about fifteen minutes of beautiful mostly silence, where the only sound he hears is the low hum of the refrigerator, the almost inaudible buzzing of the overhead lights, and the ticking of the wall clock when the door slams open.

Hubert doesn’t startle all that easily but the door bangs open with so much force into the wall that he winces and jostles the mug in his hand, nearly spilling coffee onto the tests, which would have been incredibly unfortunate and embarrassing.

Luckily, Raphael doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, he glances around the room with a big smile. “Oh!” the giant gym teacher says when he notices Hubert, “Hey Hubert! What’re you up to?”

Hubert raises an eyebrow, glances down at the papers in front of him before returning his gaze to Raphael’s. The large man is just smiling, waiting politely for an answer as he takes up the entirety of the doorway space. 

“Working.” Hubert says dryly.

“Oh,” Raphael says, rubbing his sweaty hair, “Yeah that makes sense.”

For a moment, silence befalls them. Hubert holds the coffee cup midway in the air, Raphael seems a bit lost, still standing in front of the doorway.

Hubert considers ignoring him. He’s known and worked with Raphael for a few years now but they’ve never had much to talk about. He suspects that they have very little in common. On the few occasions they’ve chatted at faculty events, he found the man to be a little too boisterous and loud for his tastes but not necessarily dislikable.

“Is there something you need?” Hubert finally asks when the silence and staring stretches on a little too long. 

Something clicks into place in Raphael’s mind. He’s sweaty and panting a little, Hubert notices, and he has his track jacket tied around his waist loosely. Hubert wouldn’t be surprised if Raphael had run all the way here from somewhere. 

“Oh!” Raphael says, bolting to the fridge and ripping the freezer door open, “Yeah!” 

He rummages in there for a second. The freezer is mostly empty because no one uses it unless they’re trying to freeze water bottles for the summer or if you’re Ashe and you reward your class with ice cream parties when they do well on something.

The rummaging is very distracting because Raphael is a lot of things but Hubert has never known the other man to be quiet. It is entirely his annoyance that prompts him to ask, “What on earth are you looking for?”

“An ice pack” Raphael grunts, staring into the freezer, “or something I can use as one. Juls twisted an ankle and I had to carry the poor kid to the nurses’ office.” 

“Shouldn’t there be ice packs in the nurse's office?”

“Normally yeah,” Raphael shrugs, reaching his arm deep into the freezer. Hubert can’t see what Raphael is doing from this angle but it sounds a lot like the man is trying to rip the ice apart. “But Marianne ran out because apparently everyone is twisting their ankles today so I ran over to see if we had something we could use.”

Honestly, to Hubert, it just sounds like an excuse to get out of P.E.

Eventually, Raphael grunts and heaves, pulling hard on something in the back of the fridge, so hard that the tiny-in-comparison-to-Raphael refrigerator actually shifts back several inches. 

“Got it!” He beams.

Hubert stares. In Raphael’s hands is what looks to be a very old and very frost-covered bag of frozen green beans. 

“It was stuck to the back of the fridge,” Raphael explains even though Hubert never asked, “Stuck good too but I got the sucker out. You think it’ll work?”

Hubert thinks it’s disgusting but he doesn’t say that. Instead, he says, “I’m sure it will suffice.” 

Raphael’s giant beam turns his way. “Awesome! Shoot, I have to go, I need to get this back and then get back to class before Caspar makes them run more laps. Thanks Hubert!”

Hubert has hardly done anything in all of this but Raphael still looks earnestly appreciative. It’s enough to earn him a parting word. 

“Take care.”

Raphael takes off in a sprint, leaving the door open, and Hubert listens to the man stomp down the hall until he is left once again to the quiet of the teacher’s lounge. He finds, strangely, that he did not mind the stomping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>    
> 


End file.
